As a pastor for 0ver 25 years, I have become familiar with death.  By my calculations, I figure that I have conducted at least 300 funerals.  I have prayed with the dying, counseled the dying to let go and allow death to come, sat with people who were drawing their final breaths, and met with countless grieving relatives and friends who have had to say goodbye to those they love.  I have participated in funerals for infants, for a few over a hundred years old, and for every age in between.  So while death and I are certainly not friends, I feel that we are far more than passing acquaintances.

Given this, I have just two words for death:  "You suck!"

I realize that this is not the most pastoral thing I could say to the enemy of love and life, but these are words that I feel and say with all the passion I have in my body.  I have seen too much death, and frankly, it is beginning to kill me.  Too many tears have been shed, too many goodbyes have been been said, too many hopes and dreams have been crushed, and far too many people I know and love have been taken from my life and the lives of those that knew and loved them even more than I.  

This past Friday I presided at the funeral of an 84-year old church member. She was taken after battling cancer for the second time in 10 years.  The cancer did not get a chance to kill her though.  The chemo and a virulent strain of pneumonia did that.  My last two visits with her were in the ICU of our local hospital.  Drugs and nutrition were pumped into her via numerous tubes and IVs, and her breathing was done for her by a machine.  She was alive, but not in any sense of the word that actually makes sense.  

She and her husband had been married for over 65 years. They were always together . . . inseparable really.  And so I stood by her bed, said a prayer, and thought about what life would be like for this soon to be widow.  How would he be able to go on with his life once the love of it was gone?  I was simultaneously sad and angry.  And though I believe that this life is not all there is, this truth for me did not mitigate either emotion I felt at that time.  It still doesn't.  I have seen too much death for that.

And yet, somehow I must move beyond this impasse.  Over the past few days I have spent much time in contemplation, and today I remembered a movie that spoke to me several years ago.  The movie is "Wit," and it stars Emma Thompson, who portrays an English professor (Vivian) who is dying from stage four ovarian cancer.  Vivian's area of expertise is the metaphysical poetry of John Donne.  Early in the film we see Vivian as a student.  She is in the office of a professor who will become her mentor and who is deriding her for using the wrong translation of one of Donne's most famous works, which reads:

"Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!"

Concerning this translation, Vivian's professor and mentor states that it uses poor punctuation that ultimately obscures the sonnet's meaning. She says:

"The sonnet begins with a valiant struggle with death, calling on all forces of intellect and drama to vanquish the enemy. But it is ultimately about overcoming the seemingly insuperable barriers separating life, death, and eternal life. 

"In the edition you chose, this profoundly simple meaning is sacrificed to hysterical punctuation: And Death-capital D-shall be no more-semicolon! Death-capital D-comma-thou shalt die- exclamation point!

"If you go for this sort of thing I suggest you take up Shakespeare. Gardner's edition of the Holy Sonnets returns to the Westmoreland manuscript source of 1610, not for sentimental reasons, I assure you, but because Helen Gardner is a scholar. It reads: 

"'And death shall be no more, comma, death thou shalt die.'

"Nothing but a breath, a comma, separates life from everlasting life. It is simple really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage, with exclamation points. It's a comma, a pause. 

"This way, the uncompromising way, one learns something about this poem, wouldn't you say? Life, death. Soul, God. Past, present -- not insuperable barriers, not semicolons, just a comma."

Watching this scene play out again has helped me a little.  I am still pissed at death, but I have regained just a little bit of perspective because I believe Vivian's mentor was right.

"'And death shall be no more, comma, death thou shalt die.  Life, death. soul, God. past, present -- not insuperable barriers, not semicolons, just a comma."

I pray for the day of death's demise.

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"Support us, O Lord, all the day long of this troubled life, until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes, the busy world is hushed, the fever of life is over and our work is done. Then, Lord, in your mercy grant us a safe lodging, a holy rest, and peace at the last; through Christ our Lord. Amen."